


The Clearness is Gone

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s10e03 Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster, F/M, boobies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 11:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6004831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well your hair fell on me<br/>Like I dreamt that it would<br/>When I dreamt your hair was long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Clearness is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Title and description come from The Avett Brothers' "The Clearness is Gone." Not a song fic.

For old time’s sake, or maybe for new time’s sake, they grab breakfast at a greasy spoon diner on their way to the airport the next morning. Over eggs over easy and oily hashbrowns, they outline the basis for their report. 

He pushes his eggs around his plate with a piece of toast and asks, “Are you going to explain that you stole a dog?”

“Are you going to explain how you allegedly talked to a monster for an hour and didn't get one clear picture?”

“I told you, he was in human form then. And look.” Mulder pulls out his phone and opens his photos. “This is definitely a close-up of the scales.”

“Yeah, you showed me.” Scully takes his phone from him and begins swiping through the blurry pictures from a few nights ago. “What did it feel like?” she asks. “Did you touch it?”

“ _He,_ ” Mulder corrects. “No, I did not touch him.” 

“Hmmm.” Scully continues looking through the photos, going past the last few days and into a few pictures of pumpkins and one of a sunrise. 

“Hey there,” Mulder warns, reaching over their weak coffee for his phone. “Swiper no swiping.”

She smirks at him. “Why, what have you got on here that you don't want me to see? More farmers market pumpkins? Why are there two of the same picture with different coloring?” 

“One’s the version I posted on Instagram, will you give me that?” 

Scully slaps his hand away and then nearly drops his phone into her omelette when she sees the next picture. She almost doesn't recognize herself at first; the picture’s a few years old, from when her hair was longer, but it's her alright, propped up on one elbow in their bed, facing the camera but not looking directly at it. Her hair, still slightly damp from her shower, hangs over her shoulder but isn't long enough to hide that both of her breasts are bare, her nipples dark and erect. Her lower half is covered by the slate-colored sheet and her eyes seem to glow blue in the soft, bright morning light. 

“Mulder,” she says, her mouth a little dry, “you still have this?”

“Swiper no swiping,” he says, suddenly engrossed in his napkin. 

“This was…” She remembers the morning with more clarity than she thought was possible. It had been her one day off a week and she’d woken with Mulder’s chin tucked under her head, his hand splayed across her hipbone. She distinctly recalls thinking that in that moment, her life was perfect.

“I’m still waiting for you to return that follow on Instagram, by the way,” Mulder says, finally meeting her eyes. “It’s bad form not to followback, I hear.”

“I’m just surprised you still have it,” she says, handing his phone back to him. Her voice catches in her throat and she takes a sip of coffee. It doesn’t help.

“Well you still have my favorite t-shirt,” he counters. “Two, actually, a fact that I learned just a few nights ago.”

“I guess we’re even then,” she says, giving him a pointed stare as she takes a bite of her omelette. 

“We’ll never be even, Scully, considering how you _stole a dog._ ” He raises his voice at the end of his sentence, making a few people in the surrounding booths turn around and glare.

“I did not _steal_ him.” Nonplussed, she flags down a server for the check. “I rescued him.”

“Hashtag adopt don’t shop,” Mulder says, scrolling through something on his phone.

“What?”

“Hashtag who rescued who. Hashtag mutts of Instagram,” he continues, looking up only to meet her admonishing smirk. “It’d make a great first post, all I’m saying.”

“I’ll post my first _gram_ when I’m good and ready, Mulder,” Scully sighs. She signs the check and gathers her bag from beside her in the booth.

“Look at you, all hip with the lingo.” He wipes his mouth and misses a spot. Scully resists the urge to lick her thumb and smudge it away.

“I have my moments,” she says instead. “Do you think he’s a mutt? Daggoo?”

Mulder shrugs. “I already like him better than the other one.”

“Big on first impressions, are you?”

“Well, I was right about you.” He holds the diner door open and she ducks under his arm. 

“Oh?” She hides a grin, remembering shaking his hand in that office nearly a quarter of a century ago. 

“Yeah, something told me you were going to be a giant pain in my ass.” He squints against the morning sun, a rarity in this part of the country. “A lovable, giant pain in my ass.” 

Fishing her sunglasses out of her purse, she says offhandedly, “You should use that as the caption when you post that picture of me to Instagram.”

She struts past his dumbfounded look and clicks the locks open on the rental car. “Come on, Mulder. We’ve got a plane to catch.”


End file.
